During the last decade, congestive heart failure (CHF) has burgeoned into the most important public health problem in cardiovascular medicine. As reported in Gilum, R. F., Epidemiology of Heart Failure in the U.S., 126 Am. Heart J. 1042 (1993), four hundred thousand (400,000) new cases of CHF are diagnosed in the United States annually. The disorder is said to affect nearly 5 million people in this country and close to 20 million people worldwide. The number of hospitalizations for CHF has increased more than three fold in the last 15 years. Unfortunately, nearly 250,000 patients die of heart failure annually. According to the Framingham Heart Study, the 5-year mortality rate for patients with congestive heart failure was 75 per cent in men and 62 per cent in women (Ho, K. K. L., Anderson, K. M., Kannel, W. B., et al., Survival After the Onset of Congestive Heart Failure in Framingham Heart Study Subject, 88 Circulation 107 (1993)). This disorder represents the most common discharge diagnosis for patients over 65 years of age. Although the incidence of most cardiovascular disorders has decreased over the past 10 to 20 years, the incidence and prevalence of congestive heart failure has increased at a dramatic rate. This number will increase as patients who would normally die of an acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) survive, and as the population ages.
CHF manifests itself primarily by exertional dyspnea (difficult or labored breathing) and fatigue. Three paradigms are used to describe the causes and therapy of CHF. The first views this condition in terms of altered pump function and abnormal circulatory dynamics. Other models describe it largely in terms of altered myocardial cellular performance or of altered gene expression in the cells of the atrophied heart. In its broadest sense, CHF can be defined as the inability of the heart to pump blood throughout the body at the rate needed to maintain adequate blood flow, and many of the normal functions of the body.
To address CHF, many types of cardiac assist devices have been developed. A cardiac or circulatory assist device is one that aids the failing heart by increasing its pumping function or by allowing it a certain amount of rest to recover its pumping function. Because congestive heart failure may be chronic or acute, different categories of heart assist devices exist. Short of a heart transplant, at least two types of chronic heart assist systems have been developed. One type employs a full or partial prosthetic connected between the heart and the aorta, one example of which is commonly referred to as a LVAD--Left Ventricular Assist Device. With reference to FIG. 1 herein, one example of a LVAD 2 is shown. The LVAD comprises a pump and associated valves 4 that draws blood directly from the apex of the left ventricle 6 and directs the blood to the aortic arch 8, bypassing the aortic valve. In this application, the left ventricle stops functioning and does not contract or expand. The left ventricle becomes, in effect, an extension of the left atrium, with the LVAD 2 taking over for the left ventricle. The ventricle, thus, becomes a low-pressure chamber. Because the intent is to take over for the left ventricle, the LVAD operates by pumping blood at cardiac rates. With an LVAD, oxygenated blood circulation is established sufficient to satisfy the demand of the patient's organs.
Another type of chronic heart assist system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,940 to Moulder. Moulder describes a pump implanted into the proximal descending aorta to assist in the circulation of blood through the aorta.
In addressing acute CHF, two types of heart assist devices have been used. One is counterpulsatory in nature and is exemplified by an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP). With an IABP, the balloon is collapsed during isovolumic contraction, providing a reduced pressure against which the heart must pump blood, thereby reducing the load on the heart during systole. The balloon is then expanded, forcing blood omnidirectionally through the arterial system. Another example of this first type employs one or more collapsible chambers in which blood flows passively into the chamber during systole, as is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,240,409 to Robinson et al. The chamber is then collapsed and the blood forcibly returned to the aorta. These devices simulate a chamber of the heart and depend upon an inflatable bladder to effectuate pumping action, requiring an external pneumatic driver.
A second type of acute assist device utilizes an extracorporeal pump, such as the Biomedicus centrifugal pump, to direct blood through the patient while surgery is performed on the heart. In one example, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,293 to Nelson, the heart assist system employs a centrifugal pump in which the muscle of the patient is mounted to add pulsatility to the blood flow. The Nelson device is used to bypass a portion of the descending aorta.
Another device, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,080,958 to Bregman et al., utilizes an inflatable and collapsible bladder to assist in blood perfusion during heart trauma and is intended to supplement a conventional heart-lung machine by imparting pulsatile actuation. In the primary embodiment disclosed in Bregman, the balloon is controlled to maintain sufficient pressure at the aortic root during diastole to ensure sufficient blood perfusion to the coronary arteries. In an alternative embodiment, a low resistance outlet from the aorta to the inferior vena cava is provided to reduce the aortic pressure during systole, thus, reducing the hemodynamic load on the left ventricle.
Other devices, such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,034,742 to Thoma, depend upon interaction and coordination with a mechanical pumping chamber containing a movable pumping diaphragm. These devices are intended primarily for application proximate the heart and within the patient's thorax, requiring major invasive surgery.
Many CHF devices are acutely used in the perioperative period. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,857 to Arnold discloses a perioperative device to pump blood at essentially cardiac rates during surgery when the heart has failed or has been stopped to perform cardiac surgery. The Arnold system temporarily replaces the patient's heart and lung temporarily and pumps blood at cardiac rates, typically 5 to 6 liters/min. Like all systems that bypass the heart and the lungs, an oxygenator is required. Of course, with any system that includes an oxygenator, such as the conventional heart-lung machine, the patient cannot be ambulatory.
With early IABP devices, a polyurethane balloon was mounted on a vascular catheter, inserted into the femoral artery, and positioned in the descending aorta just distal to the left subclavian artery. The balloon catheter was connected to a pump console that pumped helium or carbon dioxide into the balloon during diastole to inflate it. During isovolumic contraction, i.e., during the brief time that the aortic valve is closed and the left ventricle continues to contract, the gas used to actuate the balloon was rapidly withdrawn to deflate the balloon. This reduced the pressure at the aortic root when the aortic valve opened. In contrast, during diastole, the balloon was inflated, causing the diastolic pressure to rise and pushing the blood in the aorta distally towards the lower part of the body (on one side of the balloon) and proximally toward the heart and into the coronary arteries (on the other).
The major advantage in such a counterpulsation device was systolic deflation, which lowered the intra-aortic volume and pressure, reducing both afterload and myocardial oxygen consumption. In other words, when the balloon is inflated, it creates an artificially higher pressure in the aorta, which has the ancillary benefit of greater perfusion through the coronary arteries. When the balloon deflates, just before the aortic valve opens, the pressure and volume of the aorta decrease, relieving some of the hemodynamic burden on the heart. These physiologic responses improved the patient's cardiac output and coronary circulation, temporarily improving hemodynamics. In general, counterpulsation with an IABP can augment cardiac output by about 15%, this being frequently sufficient to stabilize the patient's hemodynamic status, which might otherwise rapidly deteriorate. When there is evidence of more efficient pumping ability by the heart, and the patient has moved to an improved class of hemodynamic status, counterpulsation can be discontinued, by slowly weaning while monitoring for deterioration.
Until 1979, all IABP catheters were inserted via surgical cutdown, generally of the femoral artery. Since then, the development of a percutaneous IABP catheter has allowed quicker, and perhaps safer, insertion and has resulted in more expeditious institution of therapy and expansion of clinical applications. Inflation and deflation of the balloon, however, requires a pneumatic pump that is sufficiently large that it must be employed extracorporeally, thereby restricting the patient's movements and ability to carry out normal, daily activities. IABP devices are, thus, limited to short term use, on the order of a few days to a few weeks.
As discussed above, a variety of ventricular assist pumping mechanisms have been designed. Typically associated with LVADs are valves that are used in the inlet and outlet conduits to insure unidirectional blood flow. Given the close proximity of the heart, unidirectional flow was necessary to avoid inadvertent backflow into the heart. The use of such valves also minimized the thrombogenic potential of the LVAD device.
Typically, the pump associated with older LVADs was a bulky pulsatile flow pump, of the pusher plate or diaphragm style, such as those manufactured by Baxtor Novacor or TCI, respectively. Given that the pump was implanted within the chest and/or abdominal cavity, major invasive surgery was required. The pumps were typically driven through a percutaneous driveline by a portable external console that monitors and reprograms functions.
Alternatively, rotary pumps, such as centrifugal or axial pumps, have been used in heart assist systems. With centrifugal pumps, the blood enters and exits the pump practically in the same plane. An axial pump, in contrast, directs the blood along the axis of rotation of the rotor. Inspired by the Archimedes screw, one design of an axial pump has been miniaturized to about the size of a pencil eraser, although other designs are larger. Despite its small size, an axial pump may be sufficiently powerful to produce flows that approach those used with older LVADs. Even with miniaturized pumps, however, the pump is typically introduced into the left ventricle through the aortic valve or through the apex of the heart, and its function must be controlled from a console outside the body through percutaneous lines.
All of these heart assist systems referred to above serve one or both of two objectives: (1) to improve the performance of a patient's operative-but-diseased heart from the minimum, classified as NYHAC Class IV, to practically normal, classified as I or 0; or (2) to supplement oxygenated blood circulation through the patient to satisfy organ demand when the patient's heart is suffering from CHF. With such systems, extreme pumping and large amounts of energy, volume, and heat dissipation are required.
Many of these heart assist systems have several general features in common: 1) the devices are cardiac in nature; i.e., they are placed directly within or adjacent to the heart, or within one of the primary vessels associated with the heart (aorta), and are often attached to the heart and/or aorta; 2) the devices attempt to reproduce pulsatile blood flow naturally found in the mammillary circulatory system and, therefore, require valves to prevent backflow; 3) the devices are driven from external consoles, often triggered by the electrocardiogram of the patient; and 4) the size of the blood pump, including its associated connectors and accessories, is generally unmanageable within the anatomy and physiology of the recipient. Due to having one or more of these features, the prior art heart assist devices are limited in their effectiveness and/or practicality. It would be advantageous to employ a heart assist system that avoids major invasive surgery and also avoids the use of peripheral equipment that severely restricts a patient's movement.